


'These are the days they say we'll remember'

by findingourwayhome



Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon, Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - Franklin W. Dixon & Carolyn Keene
Genre: Drama, F/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2020-09-25 02:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingourwayhome/pseuds/findingourwayhome
Summary: It started with a missing dog and an old friend. Joe had no idea how it had led to this strange little- well, family, as much as he had shied away from saying so to Frank or Nancy.Cross-posted on ff.net





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Joe sighed, shoving his chair back from his desk. It had been raining all morning, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. The light tapping of it on his office window was wholly unwanted and uninvited. Much like the gentleman standing in front of him.

“I’m not just saying it, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t do those kinds of things.” It came out more of a grunt than Joe intended, as he stood, straightened, and felt a familiar twinge in his hip.

“Please, I swear, I can’t---if I don’t get help--- just tell me the cost—” The stuttering combined with the way the man’s hands twisted his baseball hat pricked along Joe’s skin. He grimaced.

“Sir, I’m going to just tell you straight, if it’s been a month, you probably aren’t going to find him. And it certainly isn’t worth the money you’d have to pay.”

“He brought my boy back to me.” – it burst out loud and sudden and for a second Joe wasn’t sure it had actually come from the man who’d been practically showing himself out the door for the last five minutes.

“He’s----wait. What?”

The man blinked, a little surprised, a little more hope in his grey eyes as he paused his nervous twisting of his hat to clinch his hands together around it. Joe’s eyes flicked down to them. They were rough, swollen around the joints. There were scars on them, ranged from white, thin lines to red, blotchy scratches. Some kind of builder, a carpenter maybe, probably having worked for the last twenty years and still working if the recent scars were job-related. Based on the receding hairline, Joe would guess the man to be in his late forties, early fifties. “My boy----he’s not---he’s had a rough couple of years. Doesn’t feel comfortable with much these days.” There was a pause as the man swallowed, and shifted away from the doorframe, closer to where Joe stood at his desk.

“Please. I know its nothing, maybe not worth the time or the money. But he helped. He really helped. And we need that.”

Joe sighed, and sat back down heavily, pulling himself back behind his desk.

“And this IS a lost dog we’re referring to, correct?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t need the work – things had been quiet on the outskirts of Jupitar. When he’d worked in the city, he’d easily worked 80 hours a week without fail. Now that he had relocated about 100 miles outside of New York City, he was lucky if he worked 80 hours a month.

Nodding, the man gave a half-smile, and pulled a worn wallet from his jeans pocket, flipping through yellowed plastic photo holders placed in the flap of a credit card slot until he paused at one. Pulling out a small, square polaroid, the man carefully placed the photo on the desk in front of Joe.

“He’s a lab. Mixed with neighboring farm dog.”

The photo was blurred but he could see a young man crouched down, wearing a shirt about two sizes too big, arms wrapped tightly around a serene looking golden dog with ears that seemed a little too small for his head. Studying the young man, Joe noticed the way he held the dog in front of himself, tension in his bent legs, like he wanted to run and hide but anchored himself there for the sake of the photo.

“When was this taken?” Joe grabbed a yellow legal pad from the bottom drawer of his desk, shuffling aside a coffee cup and a couple stray newspaper clippings to clear a space in front of him to take notes.

“About 3 months ago”. Anxiety was creeping back into the man’s voice and he scratched awkwardly at the salt and pepper whiskers scattered along his chin and upper lip. “I know it’s just a dog. But my son, James. He was in the military. When he got back about a year ago, we had to pick him up at the hospital. I didn’t recognize him, and he didn’t seem to recognize his mom or me either. He had lost so much weight, and he kept running away, every night, for the first two weeks. After about a month of that, we talked to a friend of my father’s who had served with the navy. He’s the one who recommended a dog—said that when he got home from his first tour, his wife brought him back to his home but his dog helped him stay there. So, we got buddy here.”

“Buddy, huh”. Joe jotted the name down, circled it. Truth be told, he had no idea how he’d manage to find a dog that had been missing for a month, particularly one he’d seen posters of plastered across every coffeeshop window and drugstore for the last three weeks. But it wasn’t like he had to get his paperwork for Higgins done now, he wouldn’t need to submit the record of findings for his case until the shoplifter went to court next week. And, it had been a little too long since he had done pro bono work anyway.

It was a weak rationalization, Joe knew, but there was something about the way the dog stood so calmly in the picture, the way the young man looked at the camera without a smile, the way the man in front of him swallowed thickly and gave a suspicious wipe at his eyes, that caught at him.

“Well, tell me a little more about Buddy”.

When the clock hit 9:00pm, Joe lifted himself up off his chair, shoved the USB with information on the illusive Buddy into his pocket, and grabbed his jacket. He knew it was too late to help Frank put Zach to bed, but he was still early enough that he should be able to help out if Pete woke up while Frank was in the middle of his case notes.

Working around a six-month-old wasn’t easy. Joe had to admit, there were times he missed how things used to be. As he jogged over to his Honda, slinging his scarf around his neck to combat with the November wind cutting across the parking lot, Joe glanced at his phone and saw he had missed a text from Frank. Pausing once he settled behind the wheel, started the engine, and turned on the heat, Joe thumbed open the message.

_“Pete’s asleep. Come on over, if you have time. Don’t worry about it if you’re stuck at work.”_

_“Just finishing up. I’ll be over in about 10.”_ Joe hit send, slid his car into reverse, and nosed out onto the highway. It helped, working in a building right off the exit going into Jupitar and he’d gotten more customers heading in or out of New York than he thought he would, largely due to the convenient location. It wasn’t anything to look at, Joe acknowledged as he circled around the two story office building, but he liked the artist living in the upstairs floor and getting to know the gentle faces of the licensed professional counselors who always waved when they passed his door on their way to their own offices in the shared space.

The drive wasn’t long enough, not really, for Joe. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Frank, or take care of Pete if he woke up. It’s just that, Joe shook his head at himself, annoyed with himself. It was just that it always hurt, a little, seeing the circles under Frank’s eyes, feeling like he could have done more to ease the load. He knew he’d have to see just how tired Frank had gotten over the past couple of days that Joe had been stuck at work late and hadn’t had time to swing by Frank’s house to help out around the house.

Fighting against closing his eyes, Joe blinked sleepily at the road ahead of him and turned up the radio, thoughts drifting back to “Buddy, the Disappearing Dog” as he was dubbing the case. Not a creative name, but he’d think of something else later. He’d already checked the local humane societies and animal control facilities—he’d even called animal control and shelters in towns as far out as Ridgepark, though he highly doubted the dog would have made it over 100 miles out. He’d try to reach out to a few of his contacts tomorrow, local bartenders, coffee shop owners, people who tended to hear things, but the reality was that there was little he could really do that the owner hadn’t done already.

_Well. At least I can say that I tried, _Joe thought as he craned his neck to the right, feeling it pop with some satisfaction as he pulled into Frank’s driveway. He always was a little stiff after these long days at the office, as much as he tried to ignore that fact.

Slipping out his key, Joe walked up the little brick steps leading to the small, two story house. It was a neat little place, with a white picket fence around a small patch of front yard and a rose bush draped around the front door and steps in a way that just begged to be photographed for a Better Homes and Graden’s cover.

Out here, off the highway, it was always the good kind of quiet, Joe was reminded, as he heard the cacophony of crickets while he texted Frank a quick, _“Here”,_ and slipped as quietly as he could into the living room.

“I’m in the guest room”. Frank’s raised ‘whisper yell’, the one he had perfected over the last six months, carried Joe from the living room towards the downstairs bedroom which Frank had converted into an office as soon as he realized he would have to start working from home more often than not.

“Hey”. Joe pushed a smile on his face as he stepped into the lowlit room, taking in his brother’s tired grin and the coffee cup clenched in his hand. At sight of him, Frank’s fingers loosened around his mug, and Joe’s smile felt a little more real as he settled himself in an office chair on the opposite side of the desk his brother sat at.

“How’d the champ go down?” Joe kept his voice lowered, glancing over at the baby monitor Frank had set at the end of the desk behind a laptop with a browser opened to “New York State Case Precedents”.

“Well. Let’s just say that I will never, ever ever, want to hear Pachelbel’s Cannon ever again”. Frank groaned, putting his head in his hands in mock agony.

“I still can’t believe he likes classical music that much. Little traitor – he was supposed to be a fan of the beach boys.” Joe said lightly, taking in the way Frank’s eyes softened and crinkled at the corners. He didn’t look as tired as Joe had anticipated. “So much for all those months I spent crooning “Barbara Anne” to him.”

“Crooning? _Can _anyone croon “Barbara Anne”?”.

“Shut up”. Joe grabbed a crumpled piece of paper from the oak desk and tossed it in Frank’s face. “I can croon whatever I want to croon.”

“Okay, well maybe just stop saying croon, how about that?” Frank’s lips were curved in the grin that reminded Joe of years of sitting across from him and catching the exact moment Frank realize he had spotted something in a case everyone else was overlooking.

“Okay, okay fine.” After a pause, Joe swallowed. “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to be here these last few nights.”

Waving a hand in the air, already bent back over his laptop, Frank shook his head. “Don’t be. You were fine. I know you’ve got work to do, bills to pay. I mean, you need some way to fund that addiction to every live-streaming service ever created.”

“I’d like to say you’re wrong, but then I’d be lying to both of us, and I know too well how that usually plays out.” Joe gave a self-deprecating grunt, spinning slightly in the office chair. Frank’s eyes darted up to meet his.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to tell Mom and Dad that you were the one who’d lost Poky.”

“Nope. Nope. We are not rehashing this story again. Once a week is quite enough. May Poky the turtle rest in peace.” Rolling his chair a little closer to plant an elbow on the massive oak desk Frank had insisted on buying the day he graduated college, Joe let his smile slip away as Frank chuckled, muttering “Rest in peace.”

“How’s Callie doing this week?”

The way Frank sighed hollowed out Joe’s stomach.

“She’s—she’s feeling pretty bad. I couldn’t stay with her in the hospital while she was getting her treatment because of Pete, but I picked her up--about 6:00 I think? She didn’t want to eat anything beforehand, trying to avoid some of the nausea afterwards, but I had to try to get her to eat something before she went down for the night.”

Frank shook his head and grimaced, propping his elbow against the desk and resting his chin in his hand, eyes unfocused.

“She threw it all up, everywhere, and Pete, he just started crying and crying, and wouldn’t calm down.” Joe winced in sympathy.

Raising his eyes to meet Joe, Frank swallowed. “Yeah, I mean, we’re used to that by now. But I think I just got freaked out because Pete wouldn’t calm down and usually that makes Callie kind of steel up. Tonight though, when Pete was just screaming, Callie didn’t insist on walking to the bathroom on her own when she got sick.”

“Mm. That’s---“, The words stuttered around Joe’s mouth, and most of them tasted too much like fear. “That’s not her---uh—her usual style”.

“Mmhm”. Frank’s eyes were staring vacantly out the window into the night, his face blank. This was always hard, when Frank had to see that even someone as strong as Callie couldn’t escape being changed by something like breast cancer. Sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t just Callie’s body that had undergone surgery – it was her soul, and Frank’s too. Maybe even his own, Joe thought, as he nudged Frank’s chair under the desk, rocking him a little back and forth on the dark green carpet. He needed to keep Frank present. The past six months had taught him what happened if Frank fell into that lost, silent place he often went to after hard weekends of treatment.

The wry smile he got was something at least. “No, no it’s not.” Frank blew out another quick breath. “But we’ll take her in tomorrow if she isn’t feeling better or can’t keep enough food down.”

“Well, I have to admit,” Joe hummed thoughtfully, “if she _can _keep down your cooking, I would be impressed.”

It was a lie, of course, not even a good joke he knew, but Frank rolled his eyes and the smile came back on his face as his eyes lit up. “Oh man, you should have tried the brownies I made yesterday. I’ve been trying to keep everything really healthy, fruit smoothies and vegetables, for Callie, but yesterday she told me she refused to eat anything until I made her a brownie.” Laughter tumbled out and for the first time that night, it didn’t sound like it was being squeezed out of him.

Grinning back, Joe raised a brow knowingly. “Oh ho, now _that_ does sound like Callie. And disgusting smoothies sound like you. After that kale incident, can you really blame her?”

“Okay, the kale smoothie might have been going overboard. I’ve admitted that already! But yeah, I got mad and told Callie she was being too stubborn, and then got Pete into the car and drove off to raid Target for brownie mix. At 6:00 in the morning. In my coat and pajamas. And I couldn’t find my shoes so I ran out in my winter boots”

A bark of laughter escaped at the mental image of his 30 year old brother running around the store with a six-month old, his plaid pajamas tucked into boots, which earned Joe a reproving glare from Frank. Slapping a hand dramatically over his mouth to smother the noise, Joe shook his head. “Oh man. If only the 10 year old Joe could have seen you like that. I wouldn’t have been half as invested in copying everything you did down to the haircut I mad mom give me. But, come to think of it,” Joe cocked his head, “If I hadn’t tried to copy you, I probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in the case of the missing lemons, which was truly the start of our illustrious career. And what a national tragedy _that _would have been.”

“Well, speaking of our illustrious careers--- how was work today? Any new cases?” There was a spark of longing in Frank’s eyes that Joe couldn’t ignore, and for a moment he was relieved that the only case he had gotten that day was a barely-there case of a missing dog.

“Well, there is one, a real nail-biter.”

“Oh?” Raising an eyebrow, Frank leaned forward, twiddling at the edges of his laptop, to stare at Joe with some surprise.

“Yeah. It’s a case of a missing…..dog”.

“Oh no. Oh Joe. Tell me you didn’t.”

“Come on, its not like I’ve been super busy lately, and the guy asking me for help made a good case”.

Shaking his head, Frank’s lips quirked in amusement. “So essentially he said he missed his dog and you caved. Or am I wrong?”

“Okay, now hold on,” Joe reached into his leather messenger bag, pulling out the photo of Buddy and James and sliding it across towards Frank. “That isn’t completely accurate. I mean, first of all, it isn’t even the man’s dog, it’s his son’s.”

“Oh, wow, I’m way off.” Frank deadpanned, but Joe shoved the picture further under Frank’s nose.

“Really, take a look. His son was in the army and it sounds like he has PTSD or something like that. When he came back, the dog was kinda the only thing that got him to stay put any place. When they went anywhere public, the son, James, would freeze up, become catatonic if it was really noisy or really crowded. Buddy kind of kept him awake in those moments, helped him stay with himself. It’s been a year since James got out of the military, and the only time he gets together with anyone his own age is when Buddy’s beside him.”

Studying the picture intently, tracing a thumb across the dog’s ears, Frank nodded. “Okay, so this isn’t just someone missing a run-away pet.”

“Exactly.”

“So what has your approach been?”

Shrugging, Joe twisted his head left to right, looking up at the ceiling, absently noticing that the blue paint on the wall was starting to peel around the windows lining the room. “I mean, beyond the usual, getting in contact with shelters and animal control? Not a lot. The only thing I can think of doing that this guy’s father hasn’t already done is maybe posting online in a couple of different forums.”

“Mm, that might work. Most people are more often online than they are outside anyway.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Joe pulled out his laptop from his bag and set it on the desk across from Frank, while Frank turned back to his laptop. Both quietly typed for some time and Joe tried to find different options beyond Facebook and Instagram to post his missing dog information on. There were always some of the news agencies. Most were posting online anyway and Joe had a couple of connections with ones in the Jupitar area.

Right when Joe had finally submitted his final “missing dog” notice to the last online local news agency he could find, a little cry came from the room upstairs. Both Frank and Joe’s heads snapped up, and as one they held their breath and listened as if somehow by being extra quiet, they could cox Pete back to sleep.

It was to no avail. The wailing grew steadily louder and Frank sighed.

“He ate just about an hour ago, so he may be wet.”

Nodding, Joe stood up and stretched, “The wipes are still on the crate beside his crib, is that right?”

Gratefully shooting Joe a smile, Frank nodded. “And he’s still got a little bit of a rash that you’ll just need to apply the lotion to. It’ll be right next to the wipes.”

Leaving Frank to his work, Joe strode as quickly as he could to the small back bedroom. It wasn’t more than 20 feet away, so it only took him a moment to be creeping through the darkness of the bedroom towards the crib.

“Hey little guy,” Joe whispered, shushing and reaching down to pick up Pete who’s face was twisted in miserable distress but who immediately grasped Joe’s thumb when his hands reached Pete’s chest.

“Alright, alright, there we go.” Flicking on the night light shaped like a dolphin to the right of the crib, Joe twisted to the right to place Pete atop the changing table beside the crib, grabbing wipes and lotion from a crate full of what looked like about fifty baby blankets.

Blue eyes squinted up at Joe, screwed up in frustration, and Joe felt the familiar pang of seeing actual baby tears sparkling up at him. It was hard to believe how big Pete was getting sometimes. As Joe changed Pete’s diapers with a deftness he would never have believed possible a year ago, he smiled down at Pete, who evidently appreciated the dry feel of his new diaper and was contentedly staring up at him, eyes getting heavy again with sleep.

“There you go.” Joe cradled his nephew to him for a moment, then slowly bent down and lowered him into the crib. A sleepy grunt issued from Pete, but no cries followed, to Joe’s great relief. Compared to a lot of other kids, Pete was a pretty good sleeper, according to Joe’s mother, but Joe had had too many night of lying awake while Frank and Callie tried fruitlessly to get Pete settled.

As Joe tip-toed out of the room and shut the door once more, he felt a small buzz in his back pocket. Shushing furiously at his phone, which always seemed to vibrate at a volume only Pete could hear, Joe pressed on his display to shut his notification down.

**Nancy Drew**

The name stared up at him from his phone. It wasn’t like they never talked anymore--with Nancy moving to Pennsylvania and writing occasional stories for “Crime Reports and Investigations”, they had had enough in common to stay in contact. But what caught Joe was the bit of text he could make out on the message he had just gotten. _“So I might be crazy, but I think I found your dog.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

In the “good old days”, Joe sometimes bemoaned to Chet when they started reminiscing about their college years together, staying up until 1:00 in the morning was no problem at all. Unfortunately, the last few years had not been kind. No longer could he manage to skate by on three hours of sleep and still be semi-functional the next day, which mean Joe had reluctantly pulled out of Frank’s driveway at 10:00pm last night without any further work done than what he had managed to accomplish before changing Pete.

_But really, how functional do I have to be to find a dog? _Joe mused as he lay in bed the next morning, listening to the quiet hum of his heater, feeling not quiet as rested as he’d have liked to on a Saturday.

Rolling over, Joe sat up rubbing at his eyes, letting loose a jaw-cracking yawn as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and felt his feet scratch against the stiff carpet. His apartment was always a little too hot in the summer, but the carpet had been a necessity for the winter months, or so the landlord had assured him when he moved into the studio apartment. As November crept closer, Joe had to admit, it was nice avoiding his ice-cold wood floors by the strategic placement of his 5x6 carpet lining the walk from his bed to his dresser.

Pulling on a pair of jeans which were becoming a bit too threadbare for comfort, Joe paused to stretch out his hip – there was no ignoring the stiffness in it this morning as he leaned sideways at the waist, propping an arm against the wall for balance, the stretch of muscles gripping at him just painful enough to make his physical therapists’ recommended exercises edge forward slightly on his mental to-do list. Maybe he could bump “learning all the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody” down a notch.

Groaning a bit, Joe eased himself upright, and checked his phone. It was only 7:00am, but Pete would have been up for a while, and Joe figured Frank wouldn’t want to cook anything in the house if Callie was still feeling nauseous. Wrestling his head through a wrinkled blue button down and taking a quick peek in the mirror to decide his hair hadn’t quite reached the shade of blond that meant showering was an absolute necessity, Joe locked up his apartment and jogged to his car to make his usual weekend trip to the bakery he’d grown to love over the last year.

Not until he was standing in line in the little shop, waiting for two coffees, three smoothies, and a dozen donuts getting finishing touches of glaze drizzled on them by bleary eyed college kids, did Joe pull out his phone to take another look at the message he had gotten last night.

**Nancy Drew**

_“So I might be crazy, but I think I found your dog.”_

“Well that’s just not possible”, Joe muttered to himself absently, as he opened his messages to check the attachment Nancy had included in her text. Last he had heard, Nancy had moved to Chesterton, which, while also in New York, was a good five hour drive away. For Nancy to have found that dog, he’d have had to travel over 300 miles. Not unheard of, but highly unlikely for even the most free-spirited of dogs, as far as Joe knew.

Squinting at the attachment, Joe clicked on the photo without much anticipation. He stared.

“No way.” Eyes widening, Joe flicked his fingers over the screen to zoom in on what Nancy had captured.

“Order up for Joe Hardy?”

The call rang out, and Joe snapped to attention, pocketing his phone and excusing himself through the line of people awaiting their orders to reach the fresh-faced girl behind the counter who grinned up at him while handing over a white paper bag and carboard drink carrier with a cheerful, “Have a wonderful day!”

“Thanks, Megan.”

Receiving a beaming smile in response, Joe tipped his head in a mock bow, before taking long strides out the shop door towards his car, intent on examining the picture on his phone more closely.

Settling the drinks carefully into the passenger seat as he slid into the driver’s seat, Joe tucked the bag of donuts under a sweater with an appreciative sniff of maple and lemony- vanilla frosting and pushed his keys into the ignition before tipping sideways in his seat to grab his phone from his back pocket.

When he pressed a finger to the fingerprint sensor, Joe’s phone opened to the image he’d only been able to examine for a few moments in the bakery. It was a startlingly good shot, now that he had time to study it more closely, and Joe whistled low under his breath.

The photo was framed by two white towers, militant in their straight edges and unembellished walls. Rain was clearly streaking down when the photo had been taken, small blurred circles visible on bits of the photo like the phone had caught some of the storm on its glass as it took the picture. It was a moment of perfect timing; while it appeared the picture had been taken across a busy road, there was just enough space between cars passing each other to allow for a glimpse of a dark alley running between the buildings. In front of that darkness, right between the buildings and the crossing cars, caught in a patch of sun somehow breaking through the rain, was young boy and a dog. The boy’s head was bowed, bent against the rain, but he had a protective arm around the dog’s back—a dog with a tattered orange color and ears too small for the rest of his golden body.

“There’s just no way.” Despite the disbelief however, Joe began typing out his response.

_Nancy, good to hear from you. _

_I can’t believe it’s actually the dog I’m looking for, but I see the similarities. Where did you see them? _

Hitting send, Joe stared down at his phone, zooming again on the picture. The boy seemed small, no more than 7 or 8 if Joe had to guess, but his face was turned away from the camera, intent on the dog at his side. There was something bittersweet about the way the dog and boy out, the only people visible in a long string of cars and buildings edging around them. He wondered what had caught Nancy’s attention in them, wondered if she had felt that too and if that’s what she felt when she pulled out her phone to take the picture.

After a last lingering look at photo, Joe gave embarrassed huff— it was just a missing dog, nothing to get excited about. The odds of it being the same dog were laughably small. Shaking his head, Joe looked behind him and slid the car into reverse, backing up and twisting sharply to the right to roll onto the highway. There wasn’t anything more to do until Nancy responded, and Frank’s coffee was getting cold. Guiltily pressing down a little more firmly on the gas, Joe sped as fast as he dared until he was turning into the driveway if felt like he’d just vacated moments ago. Gravel crunched under the tires, and under his feet as Joe grabbed his set of Frank’s house keys from his beneath the scattered heap of receipt and change from the bakery and gathered up his breakfast supplies.

As he unlocked the front door, jangling his keys and calling out a tentative, “Hello”, Joe heard a slight buzz coming from his pocket but with hands full of smoothies, donuts, and coffee, he couldn’t really do anything other than kick the door closed with his foot and hurry towards the kitchen table where they always ate their meals.

“In here!”.

Callie.

The relief that hit him at the sound of her voice was almost embarrassing. Not that he was admitting that if anyone asked.

“Well well well, look who’s finally deigning to join us for breakfast this morning,” Joe grinned as he rounded the corner and leaned against the kitchen doorframe. Callie grinned back at him from where she sat stretched across two chairs, feet barely peaking over the table top, and Joe choked back a laugh as he took in her purple pajamas, pink bathrobe, and fuzzy bunny slippers. The slippers had been his idea, a gift to her before her first treatment. He had read that chemo patients sometimes became more susceptible to cold while in treatment, so the morning he drove Frank and Callie to the hospital, Joe dropped a gift bag into her lap with a careless, “because Frank doesn’t have my sense of style”. Frank had huffed, only sounding a little choked and watery, and Callie had laughed until she cried when she saw bunny faces staring up at her. She’d worn the shoes every day of treatment since then.

“Ooh, is that hazelnut I smell?” Making grabby hands at the coffee, Callie’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward eagerly, momentarily popping her legs down from their perch. Laughing, Joe snagged a cup from the set hanging above a small window facing a patch of garden in the backyard, and carefully poured the coffee from one of the to-go cups into the white ceramic mug.

“Good…nose, I guess.” As Joe set the coffee down on the kitchen counter and busied himself getting breakfast laid out, opening cabinets for plates, pulling out spoons from the dishrack beside the sink, balancing a small bowl of sugar on top of it all, Callie gave a croaky whine.

“Come on, Joe. Hurry! Before Frank sees.”

“Wait, are you not supposed to have decafe coffee either now?” Joe quirked a brow, setting the mug in front of Callie, but keeping a cautious hand around it.

Shrugging, Callie flicked at Joe’s fingers until he moved them with an indignant yelp. “I honestly don’t know. Hiding from Frank when I’m eating something I actually like is pure instinct at this point”.

At Callie’s mournful tone, Joe let out a laugh, pulling out a chair to join her at the table and pushing a peanut butter-banana smoothie in front of her.

“Well I promise you, your secret is safe with me. And I also promise you,” Joe continued as he took a bite of maple donut and struggled to speak around it, “this smoothie has only the good stuff in it. No kale.”

“Crumbs, Joe!” Callie’s nose wrinkled in disgust and Joe gave her an unrepentant beam but grabbed a napkin from the bakery’s bag and wiped at the table.

“Do I smell donuts?” Frank sleepily stumbled into the room, holding a wiggling Pete in his arms who immediately grinned at the sight of the box of donuts, making grabbing motions so similar to Callie’s that Joe smirked and gave Callie a side-glance. She ignored him, of course, and Joe snorted. How a child only six months old had already caught on to how donuts were basically desert for breakfast was mildly impressive in Joe’s opinion. Taking a quick pull on his blueberry smoothie, Joe stood up and hooked Pete under his arms, lifting him out of Frank’s arms, who gave an appreciative and slumped into the chair at the end of the table. His hand drifted out almost absently to brush against Callie’s clasped around her mug.

“Morning, hon.”

For a moment, Frank just looked at Callie, studying her eyes, his hand coming up to adjust the soft beanie on Callie’s head, tugging down on the edges to wrap a little further down her forehead. It would have been normal six months ago, Joe reflected as he watched Callie’s head tilt towards Frank’s hand, for Callie to get impatient with Frank’s worry and brush his hands away rather than letting him press the back of his hand to her forehead and giving him her softest smile as she did now. Some of the changes that had come into their lives weren’t all bad. They were softer—both of them—not weaker.

“Morning. Last night was one for the books, huh?”

“Yeah”, Frank’s voice was quiet, but the skin around his eyes relaxed as he leaned back, seemingly satisfied by the way Callie was sitting up, eating, talking.

“Well, you should know, I am drinking coffee and I don’t care what you say. I’m thirsty enough to drink a pot of this stuff. Joe, how much more of this do you have with you?” Callie asked brightly, squeezing Frank’s hand and holding her mug up with some defiance.

“Cals, I’m okay with the coffee as long as it’s decafe. AND—” Frank strained to grab the pitcher of water directly behind him on the counter, “as long as you drink one of these for every one of those.” He nodded at the mug, and Callie’s mouth pulled down at the corners as she groaned.

“Oh my gosh, is that really necessary? I’ll be peeing all day.”

“Speaking of which…” Joe nodded down at Pete. “I’m gonna get him changed.”

Joe stepped quietly outside the kitchen, bouncing Pete in his arms just slightly. As he grabbed the empty container of puffs that was Pete’s newest obsession, he could hear Callie and Frank’s lowered voices drifting from the kitchen. They didn’t really have enough time together these days, between Pete and treatments, and Joe took his time, cleaning Pete up and throwing on a pair of Hugs as Pete mouthed at the empty container, gurgling pleasantly, little fingers busily scrabbling along the edges where a label had been worn off.

“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Joe reached for his phone, remembering the buzzes it had made when he arrived, and held it up in front of him as he wrapped an arm around Pete’s chest and picked him up from the changing table.

It was another text from Nancy. Three actually.

_“I should have explained. I’m outside NYC, not far from you guys. Probably an hour away, with traffic?”_

_“I saw him again, not close enough to get a better shot.”_

_“Whosever the dog is though, it’s not the boy’s. At least, I don’t think so.”_

Raising his eyebrows, Joe typed as quickly as he could one handed.

_“What makes you say that?”_

To his surprise, Nancy’s response blinked onto the screen after a couple of seconds.

_“The dog is in good shape. The kid, not so much.”_

What did that mean? Joe started to type out another question when Pete gave a howl of protest, finally growing tired of his stationary position in Joe’s arms and flinging a hand reproachfully at Joe’s phone.

“Alright, alright, you have a point.”

Joe shifted Pete to his other hip, patting him on the back and walking back through the hallway from Pete’s room towards the kitchen. He caught a glimpse of Frank’s books still scattered across the desk in the office, and, across from it, Frank and Callie’s room. Peering inside, Joe took in the box of latex gloves propped against the nightstand beside the bed, the disposable bowels beside them, and quickly turned to shut the door. Callie never wanted Pete to be too near anything she touched after treatment and he had a feeling Frank had been the one to forget to shut the door when he came out earlier.

Shuffling into the kitchen, he caught Frank leaning over and kissing the top of Callie’s head, beanie and all.

“EW, get a ROOM.” Joe threw a hand over his eyes.

Rolling his own, Frank grinned at Joe while Callie hooted and made obnoxiously loud kissing noises in Frank’s direction. It really was routine now, starting when Frank and Callie had been told the possibility of exchanging fluids while Callie was recovering from a cycle of treatment made kissing too risky. After the first treatment Frank had instinctively leaned in to kiss Callie, and panicked, Callie tipped her head down so that Frank’s lips just touched her hair. The stricken look on both their faces left Joe swallowing hard. Since then, he always made sure to react to any touch they exchanged like he was their teenage son who had been traumatized by being told one too many times by his parents that “sex is a beautiful gift we treasure”.

Settling back into his chair, Joe pulled out his phone again and passed Pete on to Frank, who crammed the last bit of his donut into his mouth and scooted back from the table to sit Pete on his lap.

“So, I think I’m going to see a man, or rather a woman, about a dog.”

Raising an eyebrow, Frank asked, “You mean the missing dog case has a lead?”

Nodding, Joe reached for his coffee mug, draining the last dregs and wiping a hand across his mouth as he began pulling up Nancy’s messages.

“Yep. And you won’t believe who I heard from.”

“Nancy?”.

Joe could feel his eyes bugging out of his head. Callie laughed and patted his arm consolingly.

“It’s okay, Joe, I don’t know how he does it either.”

At Joe’s affronted look, Frank covered his laugh with a cough and grinned. “She asked me if I could give her any information on a client we’d had this past month, and I figured she might be coming near the city to track down a story. I had to tell her attorney client privilege applied on that case, even to us paralegals, but told her she could check out some public records in Reston, New York. That’s only, what, forty miles out? If it was Biff, Chet, or any of our other friends that we both know, we’d have been planning to see them if they were that close. So,” Frank finished with a flourish, “Nancy.”

Joe glared at Frank. “What I’m hearing is you had an unfair advantage when I asked you to guess.”

Shrugging, Frank shared a smile with Callie, and Joe sighed.

“Okay, well yes, it was Nancy. And she thinks she found the dog.”

Pulling up the photo, Joe handed his phone to Frank who examined it and passed it to Callie after a moment.

“Well, what are you going to do?” Callie leaned across the table, toppling Joe’s almost empty cup which Frank quickly righted and tossed into the trash as Pete squealed in delight, reaching for the blueberry puddle on the table.

“Well, if she’s that close, I think I might as well drive down and have a look. If she’s working on a story, she’ll be busy and I don’t wanna ask her to do any tracking that I could do myself.”

“Mm. Yeah. Interesting comment about the boy.” Frank’s eyes flicked back down to Joe’s phone as he wiped at Pete’s fingers, twisting away from the table as little hands strained to slap against the spill.

Grabbing the last remaining napkins on the table, Joe nodded. “I thought so too. I think I’ll drive down, if you guys are set for the day.”

Frank’s mouth twitched and for a moment, Joe could tell he’d had urge to ask to come, even on a silly scavenger hunt like this one most likely was. Callie must have caught it too and looked at Frank with a faint lines of unhappiness and empathy around her eyes. She’d hated that he’d decided to put his degree to use and become a paralegal while she was getting treatment, but Frank had insisted this was the best way to ensure he was there for her, and for Pete, and that was that.

“No yeah, we should be set for the day. Maybe you could swing by this evening if you wanted, but we’ve got Callie’s parents coming into town to watch Pete so I’ll get to work on some house projects.”

Joe nodded, and pulled out his phone.

_“I know it’s a long shot, but I think I’ll head down your way.”_

Gathering up the empty bags and drink carriers, Joe tossed them into the trash, and with a last tickle to Pete’s chin, kiss on the cheek to Callie, and firm hug around the shoulders to Frank, Joe walked outside to his car, pulling up the GPS on his phone.

**Nancy: ** _“Okay, I’ll give you the address I saw them at.”_

The address Nancy gave was only 45 minutes out, and Joe smiled with relief, punching it into his phone and rolling out of the driveway.

_“Thanks! Will you be around still? Want to grab lunch?”_

**Nancy: ** _“Sure! If you’re buying”._

Joe grinned at the message and rolled out towards the city of Reston.

* * *

When Joe rolled to a stop in front of a café an hour later, his stomach was already growling again and Joe was glad he’d told Nancy to meet him there for lunch. Smoothies never cut it, no matter what Frank said.

With a curious look around at the towering buildings that the café was planted right in the midst of, Joe walked into the shop, hearing a bell ring above his head as he did so. The shop was full of lounging highschool students and couples speaking in low tones, and Joe cast a quick look over the tables. Then, right beside him, he heard, “Joe!”, and turning around, he met the unmistakable smile of Nancy Drew and started. Beside her on the low window seat sat a small boy, with a red cap and a thin face.

“Uh….hi”.


End file.
